Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable has called for a cross-party “Treasury of national unity” in an interview with the Graunad today – but it’s his onslaught on the business leaders who last week paraded in favour of the Tories’ unfunded NIC tax-cut that’s grabbed the headlines:

“It is a sideshow, a diversion from the central issues. I think we went into this election with general agreement that there were three massive issues: the massive government deficit, what we do about the banking system and how we get growth going, and the issue of fairness and how you create a tax system that is fairest.

“This [NIC] issue manages simultaneously to sideline all three of them. We are going to have a collapse of sterling, lack of confidence, bond markets evaporating, but then in the first week of the election, instead of focusing on the deficit, they say waste and efficiency are going to be dealing with the deficit, so completely evading the issue.

“Second, we have the issue of the future of banking system – completely by-passed. Then there is the issue of fairness. I find it utterly nauseating, all these chairmen and chief executives of FTSE companies being paid 100 times the pay of their employees lecturing us on how we should run the country. I find it barefaced cheek. We want to get back to the question of how you make the tax system fairer.”

That’s the kind of frank, popular honesty which makes Vince’s the nation’s favourite politician.

Commenting on Gordon Brown’s campaign appearance with the mother of Sally Anne Bowman and his comments on the retention of DNA profiles of people who are not convicted of crimes, Chris Huhne said:

It is deeply disappointing that Gordon Brown is using Sally Anne Bowman’s terrible murder to mislead people about the DNA database. It is completely right to check the DNA of those arrested against a database of unsolved crimes. It is completely wrong to hoard innocent people’s DNA for years on end.

“Only the Liberal Democrats can be relied on to protect the basic principle of innocent until proven guilty.”

Can he deliver? He has made a name attacking Britain’s legacy in Iraq and running a campaign to win residency rights for Nepalese Gurkha soldiers, but the election gives him a real chance to set out his programme of green politics, civil liberties, fiscal rectitude and taking the poor out of tax.

His advisers believe he will shine in Britain’s first election television debates against a wearied Gordon Brown, although Mr Clegg’s critics say he needs to curb a tendency to appear irritable in interviews. …

Mr Clegg insists he did not come into politics to sit on the sidelines. Some of his senior colleagues have warned him that holding the balance of power could be the prize that destroys the party. For a political leader so early in his career, it could be a momentous choice.

These are the three pieces which caught my eye – seen or heard anything else in today’s media to draw LDV readers’ attention to? Let us know in the comments thread.